


Incense and Peppermints

by lesbianferrissbueller



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Anal Sex, Bottom Steve Harrington, Domestic Fluff, Ficlet, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, M/M, One Shot, Safe Haven, Scents & Smells, Smut, Tenderness, Top Billy Hargrove, just 1k of tenderness, near and dear to my heart and close to home
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-02-24 15:35:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21980293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbianferrissbueller/pseuds/lesbianferrissbueller
Summary: Steve tries to figure out what Billy's apartment smells like, and why it's such a safe haven for him.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Comments: 23
Kudos: 417





	Incense and Peppermints

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> hello gio im gonna do this note en espanol malo porque no hablo espanol bueno pero quiero intentar. Nos conocimos recientemente pero soy muy feliz somos amigos. Creo que tienes talento y eres dulce y graciosa y una alegría para estar cerca. Feliz Navidad (muy tardío). Te amo y te admiro mucho,   
> Gogo
> 
> P.S. Tuve que traducir mucho de esto jaja

Steve didn’t actually know what it was that Billy's apartment smelled like. For a while, he thought it was like, a generated smell. Like mixing scents of all Billy's various colognes, and cigarettes, and maybe like burnt toast or something? But it was different, like cloves maybe, or a candle. Reminded him of those hippie stores with crystals and fortune-telling and shit. 

Billy definitely didn’t light candles. 

But he might have if Steve ever asked.

Steve felt for ages as if he was the only one that had his own back. Of course, now that wasn't true, he had Billy, and Robin, and probably even Dustin and the kids, but he had never felt this kind of safe before. Like he could actually relax, like having his back against a wall, and still sometimes it was hard to get himself to lean into it. Maybe he felt like he wasn't supposed to  _ want _ to feel like that. Maybe he just wasn’t used to it. But when he did he felt so close to total contentment, so close to okay. And he never felt it more than when he was at Billy’s apartment. He sometimes would tease Billy for living alone, call him brooding or whatever, but Billy would almost always tease back with a “Wish I could say I lived alone, but you’re here all the fucking time.” And he’d smile, a smile Steve was pretty sure was reserved for him. 

Steve might as well move in with Billy, Robin said so all the time. He already had a toothbrush, a decent amount of his clothes, and even occasionally food at Billy’s place. Half of Steve’s music was on Billy’s shelf of cassettes and records. 

Steve always liked the smell that was left on his clothes when he’d leave them at Billy’s. Not quite Billy’s, not quite his, but a scent in between. And the unknown spice was there, the not-candle not-clove warmth that lingered in Billy’s apartment at all hours. 

But not quite all hours, Steve found out, because he’d dropped by at the last minute one week - Billy wasn't expecting him, Steve just forgot something he needed for work - and the place barely smelled like it at all. 

But when he came back that night, it permeated the air like a low hanging cloud, like the feeling of being in warm water at night. Like solace incarnate.

So whatever it was, maybe Billy did it for Steve.

Steve, ever aware of creature comforts, adored Billy’s bed. For one it was massive. For two it was comfortable as hell, more than enough pillows, and not silky sheets, but cotton ones, the kind that got soft when the starch wore off. For three it always smelled like him. Not just the lingering spice-heavy smell Steve couldn't place, but also like cigarette smoke and mint gum and leather and cologne and sweat and diesel and maybe vanilla, and the innate, particular smell Billy had pressed onto his forever-warm skin that Steve could never describe. 

In Billy’s bed, in his room, in his apartment that Steve practically lived at, he never in his life had felt safer. It was a feeling he craved, this security. A feeling Billy could offer him that no one else had. 

Not necessarily constant protection, not total responsibility, but a reprieve from the weight of the world. A place to lay down the mantle.

It was a strange thing to feel so secure and yet be so viciously handled nearly every time he was actually  _ in _ Billy’s bed. 

It was a Friday in February, and they’d kicked all the sheets off it by now, in a passion that started over an hour ago. Steve’s boxers were still twisted around his ankle, when Billy first sank into him, got the first true moan out of him. Billy never went easy on him. Steve never wanted him to. Steve had raked his nails down Billy’s back. Billy had pressed kiss after kiss to all the keened parts of Steve’s neck, dragged his teeth across it and made Steve wince. 

Steve liked how much the mattress gave under his back every time Billy thrusted into him, liked how the frame creaked, how electricity shot up his stomach. He liked how Billy’s grip kept his legs from twitching, liked how on edge, unhinged he felt, not being in control just then. He liked how safe it felt to trust Billy with the reigns. 

Billy dug his fingertips into the crux of Steve’s hips, pushing his legs up and back further. The contact burned, pulling at Steve’s skin, and he groaned,  _ ‘fuck, just like that, baby’ _ , grabbing at the sheets under his hands, bending the knee hoisted over Billy’s shoulder harder, lifting his hips up only for Billy to slam them mercilessly back down. Steve choked on a gasp, opening his eyes; he hadn't even realized they were closed. Even as Billy bent him further, fucked into him harder,  _ ‘you like that, Stevie?’ _ , and Steve looked up through lidded eyes, Billy leaned down a little, slowed his pace to push the stray hair from Steve’s face, where it clung to his sweat-dewy skin. 

Steve leaned into the contact, felt at the mercy of it. 

And the sheets on Billy’s bed were so soft, the touch so gentle. Steve felt at once destroyed and fortified, a perfect balance of brutality and tenderness.

The cinnamon-y, smokey smell that clouded Billy’s apartment with security burned at Steve’s throat, his nose, his lungs, when he came. 

The smell was the only thing he could focus on for euphoric minutes after, even when it mingled with the smell of come splattered across his chest, plastering his insides.

Billy wiped spit from Steve’s chin with a thumb, bent to press a kiss to Steve’s lips that Steve barely had the awareness to try and meet. 

Steve’s other senses came back slowly, like deliverance from static, like tuning a radio, but he still felt drowned in the smell.

A safe place to be torn to pieces.

Steve noticed when both their breathing had returned to normal, and he could feel Billy’s heartbeat under his hand, splayed across Billy’s golden chest, that the smell he associated so strongly with Billy’s place, his things, Billy himself, had dissipated, almost gone. 

“Hey,” Steve looked up at Billy. “What does your apartment always smell like?”

“You hate it.” Billy pulled back. 

“What? No, I- I like it a lot, actually.”

“Oh.” Billy’s brow was still furrowed. 

“So what is it?”

Billy waited a minute, “Incense.”

“What like, the stick thing?”

“Yeah.”

“Cool.”

“It’s…” Billy started, hesitating only slightly. “My mom used to burn it. My dad, like, hated it. But I liked it.”

Steve remembered Billy must also go looking for his own sense of security. Maybe he’d found it in the same place. “I like it, too.”

“Yeah?”

Steve nodded, smiled. 

“I’m glad,” Billy said eventually.

Whenever they talked like this, the responses got slower, each line broken up by the exchanging of long gazes, conversations only done half in words. 

“Do you just light it when I come over?” Steve asked, curious. 

Billy rolled his eyes, turning away a little. “You got me.”

Steve laughed out loud. “Aw, babe.”

“Stop-”

“That is  _ so _ sweet-” Steve sat up a little, reaching to turn Billy’s face back his way. 

“I hate you.” Billy said to him, looking up at him in a way that could only mean  _ ‘I love you.’ _

Steve leaned down to kiss him but Billy pushed back. Steve grabbed Billy’s arm as he got up, letting it slide through his grip. 

“Oh, what? Come back.” Steve protested.

Billy shook his head, still smiling. “Wait a sec.” 

He disappeared from the room, only to come back with a long stick of incense in a black holder. 

He set it on his side table, crouched a little and grabbed his lighter. He relit the end just to blow it out again. Steve could feel the heavy scent recollect in the air around them as the smoke rose.

Billy snapped his fingers through the stark white line of smoke curling up in front of him. 

Steve laughed a bit, hugging the edge of Billy’s pillow, leaning his face into it.

“What?” Billy looked up. 

“Nothing.” Steve shook his head. “Get back in bed.”

How could Billy say no to that?


End file.
